Heating oil spills when vandals open valve at pump house

Vandals opened a valve at an outdoor pump house in Harford County on Wednesday night, spilling home heating oil onto an oil company's property and into a stream, police said yesterday.

Investigators said it could take up to two days to clean the site at Heaps Oil Co. in the 4600 block of Green Marble Road in Whiteford.

Police said they did not know how much oil from the 6,500-gallon tank had spilled into the stream. They said an unknown amount had been stolen. The oil company's owner found the spill about 9 LTC a.m. yesterday and notified the county Sheriff's Department and the Maryland Department of the Environment, police said.